Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Director: Russ Meyer
Year: 1965
Country: U.S
Language: English

I don't remember when I saw Russ Meyer's Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! or why I was tempted to watch it. I had seen Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Supervixens a few weeks earlier and was amazed at how much 1960's culture was engrossed into those films. They weren't "good" but I wouldn't consider them "bad" either. They were incredibly fun films with uninhibited sexuality. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was actually my favorite of the Russ Meyer films I have seen so far. Not only can I classify it as "good" but it's also a bold statement of feminist values.

Three busty strippers seeking thrills come across a young couple in the desert. After abandoning the boyfriend, they take the cute girl hostage and start scheming on a crippled old man (think Hector Salamanca from the incredible television series Breaking Bad) and his two brawny but dim witted sons who all live in the desert, hiding a vast amount of cash. They attempt to be house guests and seduce the old man's sons in order to retrieve the money from them. However they do not realize that the old man also has some evil plans in mind.

The director Russ Meyer (March 1922-Sept 2004) was an American director, well known for his campy Sexploitation films.He loved making fun of moral stereotypes and American values. Most of his films used sex as the vehicle of his satires. He often used very similar sized women, big breasted and usually pregnant. Often referring to his actresses as "amazonian". This may be more in heart than in physique as all of the women in his films are emotionally powerful, they can hold their own and do not need men to take care of them. Meyer championed powerful women, often putting them in terrifying circumstances, but showing that they were tougher than any man they encountered.

Take away all the jokes, the elaborate camera angles, the violence, the action and the sex in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!  and what you have is the essential Russ Meyer's woman. A towering female who dominates all the men around her and treats men the same way women have been treated by men in Cinema since then. Instead of breasts being used to attract men, they are used to intimidate them. Fascinating, is the empowerment of women in this film. Feminists ideals cloud this film. It is the opposite of every Hollywood action movie ever made. Instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger we have Tura Santana, a woman who is more dangerous because she's tired of being oppressed and underestimated in a male dominated world.

In conclusion, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a film that all feminists NEED to see. For a man who has been accused of making pornography, Russ Meyer surely understood the female anxieties towards men. It is violent and gritty, but necessary. On the surface it looks like a "B" movie but in reality it is anything but that. I've seen this at least four times, and each time I've been fascinated. I will continue looking for more of his films, which sadly seem hard to find. If this is a "B" movie, then the "B" must be for "brilliant" Praise it! 5/5